[Tagging] "Feature Proposal - RFC - Sidewalk

Chris Hill osm at raggedred.net
Mon Mar 21 19:50:43 GMT 2011


On 21/03/11 19:21, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
[...]
> I suggested re-opening the sidewalk proposal because I have a specific
> need for this data and would like to use official, rather than
> unofficial tags.
[deliberately off list to keep the noise down]
Serge,
There are, never have been and probably never will be official tags. 
Anyone can use any tag at any time for any purpose. It follows that 
there are no unofficial tags either.

The proposal process uses a voting system which makes people feel that 
they have some kind of official status and this is fundamentally wrong. 
It leads to people running bots to 'correct' tagging to the 'standard' 
or 'official' version when no such thing exists. Also just because 6 
people voted for a tag means they think it MUST be rendered or MUST be 
supported by editors or MUST be used buy routers.

Many people just don't get this but it is the greatest strength of OSM. 
If you need 'official' tags then you can never something novel to OSM 
until a new tag has been authorised.

BTW, just who should police these tags?

Please discuss tags, please document the tags that are used, but please 
don't assume that the stupid, broken voting system somehow makes tags 
official and more useful.

-- 
Cheers, Chris
user: chillly




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